A new agreement on deeper reductions in strategic offensive arms—limiting the number of strategic warheads to 1,000 for each party—could serve as a positive example of cooperation and give a chance to reach mutual understanding in other areas.

The Russian political system is hard to understand, but not impossible to understand. The simplistic interpretation of a “Tsar ruling alone” shows its limits every time it is recalled to explain the Kremlin’s latest decision in foreign or domestic policy.

Every legitimacy dispute revolves around a special combination of the internal and the external. International or external legitimacy is a resource for self-assertion in the global community and it is also a resource for those who wish to challenge the state system.

Numerous international competitors see the use of force as a solution to their challenges. In relations between Russia and NATO, China and Japan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, power plays unfold with unpredictable repercussions.

The very idea of “the national” takes a peculiar form in Russia. The nation’s intellectual and political elites obstinately look away from grassroots concerns and demands, and focus instead on a set of “eternal Russian questions”.

A scenario similar to the Euromaidan protests may again take place and threaten to turn into an international crisis. It is in our common interest to stop making Ukraine a battlefield between Russia and the West, and encourage it to become a bridge between them.

The National Security Strategy to 2020 is a key element in managing the development of Russia. The plans to update it are not just a prerequisite for making changes to many other major documents but also a good reason to reconsider the current vision of the country’s present and future and its national interests.

Russia will remain a crucial interlocutor on nuclear policy, space, and various regional matters. As in the past, it will be able to block and delay global action with its Security Council veto. If its leaders want more than that, the changes this will require are relatively clear.

Tendencies will continue – a geopolitical shift towards Eurasia and the Asia Pacific Region; symbolic ‘sovereignization’ of Russia and its further distancing from the U.S. and Europe; and the erosion of a foreign policy consensus. The fourth edition of Putin’s foreign policy will most likely differ significantly from the previous three.

If America, with its power, influence, capabilities and share in the world economy proclaims itself "First", it thereby sets the tone. So everyone will have to follow it and also to become "first of all." It's hardly worth to be glad about it. But we must be ready.

A few weeks ago, as we planned our coverage of Russia’s election, my colleagues and I at Kommersant, a Moscow-based daily newspaper, discussed whether we should prepare an overview of the foreign policy proposals of all eight candidates running for president. I argued it wasn’t worth it. What’s the point in analyzing seven programs that have no chance of being carried out?

In early 2018, a remarkable milestone was reached in post-Cold War history: as of February 5, the Berlin Wall had officially been down for as long as it was up. But in contrast to the jubilance and optimism that surrounded the fall of communism, today is characterized by growing mistrust and even open hostility between Moscow and Western capitals as we appear to be further away from the promise made in 1989 by President George H. W. Bush of a “Europe whole and free.”

In 100 years since the Revolution of 1917, it continues to have impact on the Russian society. Divergent assessments of the Revolution and different approaches to its commemoration have been sparking off heated debates on Russia’s past and future that emphasize the need to reconcile different narratives.

Against a background of shifting geoeconomic power from the West to the East, economic nationalism has become the development strategy that allows rising powers to reverse negative asymmetry in interdependent economic relationships.

Before 2014, the majority of Ukrainians did not view the goal of European integration as a “national idea.” Even so, most Ukrainians had positive views about developing relations with and integrating into the EU.

Many analysts in Moscow argue that the political and propaganda pressure being exerted by the West on Russia is the result of Russia’s growth. But this Western pressure is more of a counterattack against Russia than a direct attack intended to prevent a further weakening of the West’s positions and possibly win them back. This counterattack is an important constituent feature of a “New Epoch of Confrontation.”